3) Upgrade to the latest version of Spreadsheet::ParseExcel (or at least test on a system with an upgraded version). The issue you are reporting may already have been fixed.

4) Create a small example program that demonstrates your problem. The program should be as small as possible. A few lines of codes are worth tens of lines of text when trying to describe a bug.

5) Supply an Excel file that demonstrates the problem. This is very important. If the file is big, or contains confidential information, try to reduce it down to the smallest Excel file that represents the issue. If you don't wish to post a file here then send it to me directly: jmcnamara@cpan.org

6) Say if the test file was created by Excel, OpenOffice, Gnumeric or something else. Say which version of that application you used.

7) If you are submitting a patch you should check with the maintainer whether the issue has already been patched or if a fix is in the works. Patches should be accompanied by test cases.

I've found a bug that happens with at least one date format (possibly
more, but not all as the example file also contains working cells.) I'm
expecting this will be a simple bugfix so I've included a very generic
sample script that uses the Simple version of the module. I originally
ran across the bug using the full module, however.
Please let me know if more information would be helpful.
--Jeff
Perl version : 5.008008
OS name : linux
Module versions: (not all are required)
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel 0.49
Scalar::Util 1.19
Unicode::Map (not installed)
Spreadsheet::WriteExcel 2.25
Parse::RecDescent 1.94
File::Temp 0.20
OLE::Storage_Lite 0.16
IO::Stringy 2.110

> I've found a bug that happens with at least one date format (possibly
> more, but not all as the example file also contains working cells.) I'm
> expecting this will be a simple bugfix so I've included a very generic
> sample script that uses the Simple version of the module. I originally
> ran across the bug using the full module, however.

Hi,
ParseExcel doesn't currently handle the country code, in this case "[$-409]", in the format
string.
I'll look into fixing that.
John.
--

Thanks for looking into this. One other thing that might be worth
mentioning (though it's likely obvious to you) is that there is no problem
on earlier versions. For example, here is the output from my test script
run on version 0.32:
START OF SHEET
1/1/09|good
2/1/09|good
Jan-09|bad
Feb-09|bad
START OF SHEET
START OF SHEET
I see that version 0.33 changed the default format for formatted dates, so
I'm guessing that all the code dealing with dates changed then.
--Jeff

> Thanks for looking into this. One other thing that might be worth
> mentioning (though it's likely obvious to you) is that there is no

problem
Show quoted text

> on earlier versions.

Hi,
Thanks for that.
As it turns out earlier versions where inadvertently but fortuitously
removing the [$-409] style country codes.
Anyway, there will be a fix in the next release. Hopefully within a week
or two.
John.
--